Page 33 of Julian

I nod, eyes cutting briefly down to the ice. This arena’s been renovated significantly since then, but I remember the details. “I was six the first time my dad brought me here. We didn’t do much together, but since he owned the team, it was expected I start coming to the games. Luckily, I loved it, so it was always special. Back then, the players didn’t wear helmets, sticks were made of wood versus carbon fiber, and fighting was expected to make a game good.”

“Were you close to your dad?” she asks, and I’m surprised at the question. It’s very personal, borderline invasive to ask someone you’ve only known a few days. In fact, I’m not sure anyone’s asked me such a thing about myself. And yet, I’m glad she asked it. It’s a major fracture in the wall she keeps around herself.

“No,” I answer truthfully, my eyes cutting back to the ice where the players are lining up for the face-off. “My dad was what many people call ‘emotionally unavailable.’ His first love was his empire.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and I look back to her in surprise. Her empathy is far too overserved in this situation.

“Don’t be,” I assure her with a reassuring smile. “I had other good male influences in my life.”

“Percy,” she says with a confident nod, and I stare at her agog that she would make such a leap.

Such an accurate assumption, because yes, Percy was more of a father to me growing up than my own dad ever was.

The crack of sticks clashing over the puck draws my attention as the face-off is completed, and the crowd roars to open the start of the second period.

“Okay. Explain it to me,” Harper says as she leans forward to watch the game, elbows on her knees, her eyes tracking the puck.

Not a request.

An order, and I find it adorable. I doubt she even knows she’s done it… commanded the owner of the Vipers to teach her the fundamentals of the game. No one else would dare, and I’d never submit to such a thing.

I’m not submitting now, but I find it refreshing, this enigmatic woman sitting beside me, struggling to survive in New York while raising a teenage brother, who isn’t impressed with fancy steak lunches or owner’s suites but has tenaciously decided to learn this game.

“Okay… twenty players on each side,” I begin. “Six on the ice at a time—three forwards, two defensemen, one goalie. The objective is simple. The execution is not.”

Below us, Grizz takes the ice and Harper’s eyes track him immediately. “He’s big.”

“He’s one of the best wingers in the league,” I say.

I watch Harper watch the game and find it more interesting than the game itself. She asks astute questions, and when she doesn’t, I provide tidbits I think she might find helpful.

“Why did they stop?” she asks, two minutes in after the play is whistled.

“Offsides. The puck has to enter the zone before the attacking players do—meaning the puck has to cross over that line before any part of the player does.”

“That seems arbitrary,” she quips.

“It prevents players from camping in front of the goal and waiting,” I say. “It forces the play to build and makes the game more complex.”

She considers this with the same focused attention she gives everything. “Okay. That makes sense.”

A shift later, our defenseman, Zane Nolan, takes a hard hit into the boards directly below the suite. Harper jolts, face scrunched up with a wince as the crowd reacts with an offended roar.

“Is he all right?” she asks as Nolan shakes it off, zipping after the puck.

“He’s fine. That’s a clean hit.”

“Clean perhaps, but also violent.”

I wonder if that’s distasteful to her, and for some reason, it’s important to me that she like the game at the cornerstone of my business empire. “Hockey’s a contact sport. The boards are part of it.”

“I like that he just kept on going, as if it was nothing. It’s like a metaphor for shaking off the bad and chasing the good.”

I stare at her, again touched by the impactful words she offers up so effortlessly. Her eyes follow the action and the way her body leans even more forward tells me she’s excited about it.

On the ice, Grizz takes a pass in the slot and buries it—top corner, clean and decisive. The suite explodes behind us and Harper jumps up, fists raised. “Yes!!!” she yells and then turns to me, holding out her palm. I stand, give her a high five and join the rest of the crowd in cheering the goal. Every bit of professional composure she’s been maintaining for two days has slipped, revealing what’s underneath.

She’s enjoying herself and for some as-yet inexplicable reason, that brings me immense gratification.